The financial requirements to start represent an impossible hurdle.
Financing is what investors do, and most investors are out to make a profit, typically private and in the form of money. Can you find investors interested in other types of profit, like “common good”? Probably. But enough investors with enough capital? High-rank investors want that profit to be more money than they invested, back in their pockets (which I think is fair).
Now, even if you did manage to gather enough capital to start operating, would you be able to compete with for-profit corporations? It’s going to be difficult, especially because bringing down production costs or expanding services to keep up with the industry may require additional investment, and for-profit corporations can sell parts of themselves in exchange for that investment (with the hope that they will increase in value at least that much). But non-profits cannot easily do that, because even if they could sell parts of themselves, sustaining market valuation without paying dividends (now or in the future) just does not happen. They can take collateralized loans, but that might be orders of magnitude below what for-profits can gather in investment rounds.
A different topic is whether it would be generally positive for all any and all for-profit corporations to be replaced by non-profits. I do not think this is the case, but I would be happy to engage in such a debate.
I think you were spot on with:
Financing is what investors do, and most investors are out to make a profit, typically private and in the form of money. Can you find investors interested in other types of profit, like “common good”? Probably. But enough investors with enough capital? High-rank investors want that profit to be more money than they invested, back in their pockets (which I think is fair).
Now, even if you did manage to gather enough capital to start operating, would you be able to compete with for-profit corporations? It’s going to be difficult, especially because bringing down production costs or expanding services to keep up with the industry may require additional investment, and for-profit corporations can sell parts of themselves in exchange for that investment (with the hope that they will increase in value at least that much). But non-profits cannot easily do that, because even if they could sell parts of themselves, sustaining market valuation without paying dividends (now or in the future) just does not happen. They can take collateralized loans, but that might be orders of magnitude below what for-profits can gather in investment rounds.
A different topic is whether it would be generally positive for all any and all for-profit corporations to be replaced by non-profits. I do not think this is the case, but I would be happy to engage in such a debate.